


Growing Dipnip

by Feneris



Category: Gravity Falls, Transendence AU - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Gardening, Gen, Invasive Weeds, Yggdrasil - Freeform, dipnip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 02:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6034867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feneris/pseuds/Feneris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the first sprout appeared in her garden, Sarah had elected to leave it be. It hadn't been doing any harm, and the shimmering leaves were kind of pretty. Within a week they were starting to crowd her cabbages. </p><p>Yggdrasil was an incredibly rare magical plant, whose mysterious propagation and growing needs had stymied every attempt to cultivate it. The leaves were so rare, they could sometimes sell for upwards of a hundred dollars an ounce.</p><p>David and Sarah didn't particularly care what an ounce of the stuff sold for. They had been giving it away by the bushel. They just wanted to find a way to keep the damn plants from completely engulfing their house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growing Dipnip

**Author's Note:**

> I've had a few ideas for stories involving David and Sarah. One of them involves repeated encounters with a minor demon they bludgeon back into the dreamscape, causing the demon to vow revenge, which involves them thwarting the demon and beating it back into incorporeality, again. 
> 
> The idea for this silly little piece came about when I had the image of David burning a huge pile of Yggdrasil in the backyard, while inside, Sarah is wondering why the heck Alcor is acting so weird and is asking whether they have just inadvertently adopted another cat.

When the first plant had appeared in her garden, Sarah hadn't thought much on it. It had been a small thing, with long creeping tendrils and dark green leaves that shone with an iridescent sheen. It hadn't been hurting anything, so she had just left it alone. The leaves of the plant were rather pretty, and she was kind of curious as to what it would look like as it grew a bit more. 

Then one little plant had turned into two, then three, than five, until it was starting to crowd her cabbages. At that point she decided that enough was enough and had ripped out the whole lot of them and tossed them on the compost pile. The next day, there were already eight new shoots poking out of the dirt. Those too were quickly pulled out to join the others on the compost heap. If anything however, that only seemed to encourage them. More and more shoots kept appearing in the soil of her garden. Soon there were small tendrils creeping across the grass of the law and out from between the leaves of her flowers. 

The worst part, in Sarah's opinion, was that the plant didn't seem to be good for anything. David had tentatively identified the plant as Yggdrasil, and claimed it could sell for hundred of dollars on the internet. Sarah for the life of her couldn't see why. While the leaves were interesting to look at, they were nothing spectacular. It didn't produce any fruits, seeds, flowers or edible roots. The thick tap roots of the plant went only for a few inches before they literally faded from existence. She had even dried some of the leaves to see if she could identify anything good about them. David had experimented with using them as a seasoning in his cooking, but the results had been rather lackluster. When she burned it in her incense burner, it had produced a mild, herbal smelling smoke, nothing particularly noteworthy. It hadn't even produced any kind of high or anything that seemed to justify its extreme worth in Sarah's mind.

The only thing it seemed to be good for was overrunning her garden and stunting her vegetables.

\---

"Are you sure you want to do this?" David asked. "I mean, you could sell this stuff on the internet and at least make some money off it."

"No," Sarah snapped as she tossed the last few plants on the gigantic pile of Yggdrasil sitting in the front yard. "I've spent all morning pulling out every single one of these damn weeds I can find. I am not giving it a chance to re-infest my garden again. Burn it all." 

David shrugged. Sarah didn't tell him how to cook, and he didn't tell her how to garden. He sent a lightning bolt into the pile, the flames caught, and soon the whole thing was burning.

"I can keep an eye on this if you want to go inside and take a shower," David suggested.

"Looking for a chance to indulge your inner pyromaniac?" Sarah quipped with a grin.

"I'd burn the world if you gave me half the chance," David grinned back. "Seriously though, you look like you need one." 

"I do and I will," Sarah agreed. "Thank you. I'm just going to summon Alcor first, see if I can barter the knowledge of how to keep the damn plants from ever coming back." 

"Okay," David nodded. He picked up the garden hose, and turned his full attention to making sure the burning pile of Yggdrasil didn't set the house or the woods on fire. Meanwhile, Sarah trudged inside, climbed the stairs, and opened the door to the room she had dubbed her summoning room.

She was immediately hit with a cloud of herbal smelling smoke. She strode over to the open window and peered out into the front yard. The wind had shifted, and was now blowing the smoke billowing out from the bonfire straight towards the house. David, standing out on the lawn, could only offer a helpless shrug in response to Sarah's glare. 

Well, he certainly couldn't control the wind. Sarah slammed the window shut, and set to work in preparing the summoning. She turned over the rug to reveal her summoning circle, lit the candles, and spoke the incantations. 

The candle flames changed color, the shadows coalesced. Alcor the Dreambender appeared in a burst of shadow and fear.

 **"WHO DARES SUMmm** mooon..." The demons pupils shrunk to pinpricks and his eyes went wide. Sarah stepped back in alarm. Something was wrong.

\---

"DAVID!" Sarah's shouting echoed from out of the house. "I NEED YOUR HELP!"

"WITH WHAT?" David yelled back. "I STILL NEED TO KEEP AN EYE ON THE FIRE!"

"ITS... I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT. JUST COME INSIDE AND SEE FOR YOURSELF!"

A flash of worry crossed David's face. "OKAY!" he called back. "JUST GIVE ME A SECOND!" He quickly doused the pile with the hose, making sure to soak the entire thing. It would be a pain to get the fire burning again, but it was better than it springing out of control while he was distracted. 

"Is everything okay!?" He asked as he strode in through the door. "What it is...?"

Alcor the Dreambender was sprawled out across Sarah's lap, a smile of blissful contentment on his face, and he was _purring._

"I think," Sarah said carefully, "that we may have adopted another cat." 

\---

David and Sarah enjoyed one blissful, Yggdrasil free week. Than it came back with a vengeance, and it wasn't just the garden this time. Sprouts were shooting up all over the lawn. Tendrils were winding up the trunks of the fruit trees. It was everywhere.

Sarah tried running it over with the lawn mower. The Yggdrasil won. The shredded remains of the plant clumped together inside the lawnmower, clogging the blades, before rapidly hardening into a concrete-like mass that was nearly impossible to chip out. In desperation, Sarah finally threw away her pride and started searching the internet for ways to get rid of Yggdrasil from your garden.

The results were more or less equally divided between incredulous disbelief that someone would actually want to get rid of it, and those who thought Sarah had mistaken chickweed for Yggdrasil. Finally however, she found her way to what admittedly was a very short list of people who actually studied the plant, and from there to the University of Toronto website, where she got in contact with one of the leading experts in supernatural botany.

\---

"I've never seen anything like this," Dr. Meera Khatri said as she walked through David and Sarah's yard. The Yggdrasil was everywhere. Whole bushes with creeping tendrils and thick woody branches were sprouting out of the lawn, the garden was nearly completely engulfed along with several of the fruit trees, and several tendrils were trying to make their way up the side of the house. There was even a gigantic pile of burning Yggdrasil sitting in the middle of the lawn, filling the air with a gigantic plume of smoke. "We... I... you have to understand," she finally explained. "Yggdrasil is extremely difficult to study. We know next to nothing about how it is propagated, what growing conditions it needs, or even what its full properties are. We've never been able to grow it in the lab, and as far as I know no one has been able to cultivate it. It shows up at seemingly random places, where it seems to be largely indifferent to any sort of outside influence. I've found patches of it growing straight out of the middle of an arctic glacier. But the moment we try to transplant it, it just dies. I've never seen any more than one or two bushes growing in the same spot. This... is unprecedented." 

"Wonderful," Sarah sighed. "Is there anything at all I can do to get it to stop coming up? Short of, you know, nuking this whole property. It's already overwhelmed my cabbages, and it's threatening to do the same to my cauliflowers as well. David's afraid it is going to swallow up the house next, and I'm increasingly finding myself agreeing with him."

"I'm sorry," Dr. Khatri replied. "I'm at a loss to explain why you are suddenly experiencing this sudden outbreak of Yggdrasil, nor any way you might effectively deal with it. However..." She paused, trying to choose the right words. "I would like to ask your permission to take samples and readings off your property. Maybe I'll find out something I that will help you two out. I can't make any promises, but I'll try."

"That's the least I can ask for," Sarah replied. "You have my permission to do what you need to do for your research. I'll have to ask David for his opinion, but I'm pretty sure he'll agree."

"Thank you. There is one thing I have to ask though. What are those poles you have sticking out of your lawn?" The doctor stopped and pointed to a thin wooden pole sticking straight out of the grass. Numerous runes and pictographs had been carved into the wood, though their purpose was not immediately apparent. Several more just like it were scattered across the lawn in a seemingly random pattern. 

"Those are to redirect magic currents," Sarah explained. "We recently warded the garden against deer, rabbits, bears, and other such pests, and David put those in so that they channeled the magical currents towards the wards. The wards themselves are pretty simple, but with the boost they get from the magic currents, they could keep out a minor demon if they had to." 

"Really? That's a surprisingly simple way of keeping your garden safe."

"I don't know if simple is what I'd call it," Sarah laughed. "David spend nearly a year trying to plot the magical dynamics of our property, and another whole month trying to figure out the best spots to place the sticks. I don't understand half of what he did, but it seems to have worked. Though I'll admit that boosting the wards to that degree was probably a bit of an overkill for keeping out rabbits and deer."

"Interesting. Well, thank you for sharing that with me. I'll come by tomorrow to collect some plant, water, and soil samples, if that's okay with you." Dr. Khatri held out her hand. "It was a pleasure meeting you and David."

"You're welcome," Sarah replied, grasping the offered hand. "I hope you find something out that can help us."

\---

_"Hello? Mom? It's me Sarah. Sorry I didn't call last week. Things have been hectic here lately. Hmm? Oh nothing much, just a problem with weeds in the garden. That swearing? Oh that's David. Yes, well, those weeds in the garden, they've been trying to creep up the sides of the house. David's been trying to clear them all weekend. No. No, he's doing a good job of it. It's just that they keep growing back almost as fast as he can clear them. Yes, I know. We're working on a more permanent solution. We're just not having much luck with that at the moment. Okay. Yes Mom, I have heard about that new adoption initiative. No I haven't checked it out. Because we're not going to have kids Mom. We're just friends. What does living together for six years got to do with anything? Yes, the house is in both our names. We're literally sleeping in different beds Mom. No, there is no one else. Yes, I do remember Mark. Do you remember what a disaster that turned out to be? I know I was only sixteen then. That doesn't mean... Hold on a second Mom, I need to check something out. I know it's probably nothing but... Shit on a stick!! Mom, sorry, I'm going to have to call you back. No, it's nothing serious. Just a high demon shredding our drapes. Love you! Bye!"_

\---

David didn't show up for work that week. Instead, Jack Heston, the Head Curator of the Gravity Falls museum got an email from David saying in effect that he needed a week off work because he needed to stop the "fucking weed" from completely swallowing up the house. 

The contents of the message aside, the fact that David was suddenly begging a week off work was worrying enough. He wasn't the type to make bullshit excuses just because he didn't feel like getting up that morning. Heck, the man rarely asked for time-off without giving it months in advance. While it wasn't as if David's work was in any way time-sensitive or vital to the day-to-day running of the museum, the Head Curator nonetheless felt the need to drive up to David and Sarah's house just to make sure that everything was alright.

What he saw when he pulled up to their place was nothing like he expected. The bonfire burning on the front lawn had only grown to a good seven feet tall, and was putting a gigantic cloud of smoke into the air. Yggdrasil vines were crawling up all sides of the house, and there was David, frantically hacking at the tendrils with a machete and swearing a blue streak. 

"David? Are you okay?" Jack asked. 

"No," David said, lowering the machete and letting out a long sigh. "This damn weed is overwhelming our entire property, and we're just barely able to keep it from completely engulfing both the house and the garden."

"Is that, Yggdrasil?" Jack asked with incredulity. "And you're just burning it!? Do you know what a gram of that stuff will sell for?"

"You want some?" Sarah asked, turning around the corner with a basket of Yggdrasil slung over her shoulder. "Here!" Without warning, she dumped the entire basket straight into Jack's arms. "Take it! TAKE ALL OF IT! I don't care what you do with it! Just get it out of here!" Without waiting for a response, she stormed off back behind the house. No doubt to try and keep the Yggdrasil from taking out her potatoes as well as the cauliflower. 

"Seriously," David said the moment Sarah was out of sight. "We need help. Folks are welcome to take as much of this damn weed as they want, so long as they help us get rid of it."

"I'll spread the word," Jack replied. "I'd stay and help, but I need to get back to the museum and what the hell was that!?" 

David turned around just in time to see a black and gold shape dart away from the window and into the house. 

"Just Alcor the Dreambender," he replied. "Ignore him."

\---

Whatever Dr. Khatri expected when she returned to David and Sarah's house, it wasn't the crowd of spectators that had gathered around the edge of the property to watch David, Sarah, and a small group of volunteers try to combat the Yggdrasil overtaking the entire area. There were even a concession stand selling treats, and a group of kids roasting marshmallows over the bonfire burning in the yard. 

"We're only tolerating them because we're getting a cut from the concession stand," David explained, when Dr. Khatri tracked him down. "Otherwise I'd be getting out the tear gas." He turned a despairing look back at the Yggdrasil, which had now completely taken over the lawn and was making good progress on reaching the second story of the house. "Please tell me you've found something that can help us get rid of this shit." 

"Possibly. Tell me, do you know how much magical energy you've been channeling through your property since you put in the wards around the garden?"

David shrugged. "A lot. We're siphoning off the Gravity Falls Main Stream, but I don't have any numbers if that's what you're looking for." 

"Well, I had one of my colleges at U of T take a look at some of the readings I took of your place. Gravity Falls is already the most magical place on the planet, and according to her, the energy readings from your property are registering at levels comparable to a low to mid-level demon."

David let out a low whistle. "That explains the background noise. Is this a something to worry about? I've never heard anything about excessive magical energy being a health hazard or anything like that."

"Quite the opposite actually," Dr. Khatri explained. "Which may help explain your Yggdrasil infestation. I've been doing some comparisons between known patches of wild Yggdrasil and the mapped magical currents, and there's a correlation between high concentrations of magical energy and Yggdrasil growth. We don't have any hard proof, but I'm starting to suspect that Yggdrasil is both propagated and sustained by the magical currents. If you redirect some of the energy away from your property, you might be able to drop ambient magic levels to the point where the Yggdrasil can't..." 

David was already running for the magical poles sticking out of the front lawn. 

\---

It took all of a half an hour for David to rearrange the poles scattered across the lawn, so that the bulk of the magical currents were now being redirected around the property. The Yggdrasil was dead within a day. This time, it didn't come back. David and Sarah watched the last of it burn to ash with smiles of satisfaction on their faces. 

The cut from the concession stand was enough to make up for all the work they had missed. Although Jack had emailed them to say that it was probably a good thing they had burned all that Yggdrasil instead of selling it, as the sudden influx of fresh product into the market had caused prices to drop from over a hundred dollars an ounce, to just under fifty cents a pound. 

In contrast Dr. Khatri had also emailed them to say that she had just successfully grown Yggdrasil in her laboratory. Along with promises to include their names in her paper when it was published. 

David was just happy that there were no more vines threatening to swallow the house whole, and Sarah was pleased that not only had she been able to keep her entire garden from being completely overrun, but that her cabbages seemed to be making a good recovery. (The cauliflowers were a lost cause however.) 

As for Alcor, his entire memory of the past month was nothing more than a fuzzy blur in his mind. David and Sarah had no intention of changing that.


End file.
